ANITA RACHVELISHVILI IN SONG

ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

There are very many good voices. There are even some great voices around, although those do not abound. What is rare to find these days is a great voice in the body of a great singing artist. Those are a few in a thousand, if that many. Anita Rachvelishvili is that rare individual: a great voice and a great artist both in a perfect combination.

Since the Georgian mezzo-soprano sings a good number of the selections in this album in Russian, the English titles are given here for ease of identification.

Elégie, includes the familiar How fair this spot and None but the lonely heart, the declamatory, quasi operatic Night, O do not mourn me, and Reconciliation, and the lyrical Child you are beautiful as a flower, Sing to me, my beauty, I fell in love, and How fair this spot – all Tchaikovsky Romances that call for a full palette of vocal colors fully at the disposal of the artistically and vocally inexhaustible Anita Rachvelishvili. Here she is accompanied by the superb pianist Vincenzo Scalera, who proves to be the ideal musical partner in this recording.

There is a hauntingly beautiful song exquisitely sung by Ms. Rachvelishvili in her native Georgian: Otar Taktakihvili’s Mzeo Tiabatvis (Sun  of Haying Month). There are Manuel de Falla’s Siete Canciones Populares delivered in idiomatic Castilian Spanish, there are three Tosti songs elevated by the singer from salon evergreens to art songs, including the beloved Ideale. There are three French mélodies: Chanson Triste, La Vie Antérieure, and Elégie sung with Gallic flair and impeccable diction.

In any idiom Ms. Rachvelishvili imbues her singing of this recital repertoire with restraint and elegance, never for a moment betraying the delicacy of the genre with any larger than life operatic grandstanding – this all the more remarkable since we are dealing here with a large, voluptuous, dramatic mezzo-soprano utterly comfortable in any of the major Verdi roles which she so comfortably inhabits.

The SONY CLASSICAL INTERNATIONAL recording is perfectly engineered and elegantly produced, providing yet another superb calling card to one of the greatest singers currently working today.

Rafael de Acha                  ALL ABOUT  THE ARTS

Published by ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

Rafael de Acha has enjoyed a distinguished career in the arts as a performer, stage director, producer, and educator. He was born and grew up in Cuba. At the age of 17 he moved to the United States to study Drama at the University of Minnesota, and later Languages at L.A. City College, Music at the Juilliard School of Music, at the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music, and at the New England Conservatory of Music, from which he received the Master's degree. He has taught courses on the History of Music at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music and at Florida International University, and contributed writings and reviews to Seen and Heard International (www.seenandheard-international.com ) and to this blog. He co-founded the award-winning New Theatre in Coral Gables, Florida, where he produced and staged twenty seasons of classical and contemporary theater, including fifty world premieres of plays that went on to have international and national productions on and off Broadway, including Ana in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz (Pulitzer Prize for Drama 2002 and Tony Nomination 2003.) In 2006 he was presented with a citation from The Dade County Cultural Affairs Council for “trailblazing contributions to the arts in South Florida.”